Clydevale standardbred breeder Bruce Stirling will be hoping his 3yr-old filly Isinbayeva can show some of the ability of the Russian champion pole vaulter after whom she was named.
Isinbayeva recorded her first win last Friday night at Addington at her third start.
Stirling bred Isinbayeva, a daughter of Christian Cullen and Vera's Dream, and races her with Jimmy Gin, a Moeraki market gardener.
Stirling named the filly after Yelena Isinbayeva, the 26-year-old from Volgograd.
"I decided on the name after seeing Isinbayeva win the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.
"She showed commitment by going for the world record after she had taken the gold.
"She showed poise and didn't let the pressure get to her."
"Laurence Hanrahan [the trainer of Isinbayeva] said to me to give her a nice name as she was showing him she was a very special filly," Stirling said.
Vera's Dream, a daughter of Holmes Hanover, won twice from nine starts in the late 1990s from the stable of Denice Swain.
"Vera's Dream qualified in a time that bettered the New Zealand record and she won the Leonard Memorial at Cheviot in race record time."
Isinbayeva is her third foal.
She is in foal to Courage Under Fire.
She is a sister to Da Ginstir, who won at Forbury Park on June 4 for Stirling and Gin and races there on Friday night.
Da Ginstir won two of his first four starts for Hanrahan.
He has won three races from the Kirk Larsen stable.
Stirling breeds standardbreds on his sheep farm.
He has six broodmares.
The best horse Stirling has bred and raced is Tartan Clansman (Majestic Chance-Rhodesian Lilly), who won nine races and $163,050 in the early 1990s, including the Superstars.
Isinbayeva gave driver Ricky May win number 1998 when she won.
May is poised to become the third reinsman in New Zealand to reach 2000 wins after Tony Herlihy and Maurice McKendry.
He has likely prospects in Gold Reply, Dobby and Sary Hanover at Addington today.
Dobby was bred by John Lischner.
May drove Tartan Clansman in eight of his nine wins for trainer Lischner.
Stirling raced the horse with Derek McCarthy and John Maynard.
Isinbayeva is a two-time Olympic gold medallist (2004 and 2008), the IAAF Female Athlete of the Year in 2004, 2005 and 2008 and the World Sportswoman of the Year in 2007 and 2009.
She has been a nine-time major champion.
She holds Olympic, world outdoor and indoor and European outdoor and indoor titles.
She set the world outdoor record of 5.05m at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the world indoor record of 5m in the Ukraine in February.
She has set 26 world records.
Isinbayeva came from humble beginnings.
The daughter of a Tabasaran plumber from Dagestan and a shop assistant mother, an ethnic Russian, she is indebted to her parents who made financial sacrifices to help her career.
Guadeloupe will race at Forbury Park on Friday night in preference to Addington today.
